Small Town, Big Ideas Mahanoy City, Pennsylvania, changed the way people watch television. In the early 1950s, as Americans embraced TV, Mahanoy City was left out. Tucked between mountains in the eastern part of the state, it could not receive broadcast signals from television stations in the big cities nearby, so a local appliance dealer, [...]Read Full Article →

Furniture Deemed Important The teenager found it uncomfortable to fold his large frame into a classroom desk, so he frequently asked if he could stand. That position helped him feel better, but made it hard for him to attend to academic tasks. In another classroom, a student needed time to pace the halls under supervision. [...]Read Full Article →

Contemporary Issues in an Idyllic Setting New Hampshire: A world described in Robert Frost poems, small farms, picturesque New England villages where church steeples poke above autumn trees. It’s an idyllic image – and there is truth to it. But it is equally true that New Hampshire, like every state, suffers from the challenges of [...]Read Full Article →

A Small School with Big Ideas Nobody is quite sure how it got its name because National Park, New Jersey is not a national park, nor is there one nearby. But the town of 3,200 people located on the Delaware River across from Philadelphia has an excellent elementary school with ambitions large enough to be [...]Read Full Article →

Making Students Feel Included Children want to feel included, a special challenge for schools when some students are set apart by their disabilities. But thanks to an innovative desk that physically and visually blends in with traditional classroom furniture, three wheelchair-bound students in a Western Pennsylvania school district are now able to join their peers [...]Read Full Article →

Accommodation in “the Sweetest Place On Earth” The student’s wheelchair was a complex piece of technology. The Derry Township School District needed to accommodate it in the least restrictive way so that the fifth grade student could participate in class despite the size of his chair. They turned to Howard Newman, president of Newman Adaptive, [...]Read Full Article →

Big Cities, Small Towns, Public & Private Schools AlertSeats™ Gaining Foothold In America’s Schools Big cities and small towns; special needs classes and regular ed; public schools and private: AlertSeats are finding their way into America’s classrooms. In Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, the state’s second largest city, AlertSeats are helping in the Pittsburgh Conroy School, a center-based special [...]Read Full Article →

Rural School District Takes Creative Approach Potter County in north central Pennsylvania is one of the most remote of the Commonwealth’s 67 counties. It is home to fewer than 18,000 people and is served by neither air, rail, nor interstate highway links. And though few Pennsylvanians have ever visited it, Potter County contains some of [...]Read Full Article →

School District Turns To Fund Raising The Hatboro-Horsham School District in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, enjoys a strong tax base, the support of parents and the communities it serves, and recognition from both the Pennsylvania Department of Education and the United States Department of Education for excellence in education. Yet even Hatboro-Horsham faces difficult choices at [...]Read Full Article →

Kindergarten Students Are Moved to Learn Winter comes early to the Monadnock region of western New Hampshire, and it stays late. Nonetheless, students in Terri Carsons kindergarten class at the Hillsboro-Deering Elementary School get to hike, jog run and bounce every day  without leaving their classroom. The activity in Mrs. Carsons class is [...]Read Full Article →